Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Bristol Palin and the Old Canard

What's another way to say aged duck?

So a few words on Ghostwriting. Ghostwriting is the art of writing a speech or book or whatnot so that it sounds like your employer. The greatest compliment you can pay to a ghostwriter is, "that didn't sound like you at all." So whether you're polishing one of Bill Clinton's speeches or Keith Richard's autobiography, all the audience hears is the seamless voice of the purported author. It would have been a failure if, let's say, if Kennedy's inauguration speech had suddenly shift into 50's teen slang:

Don't forget today that we are the ankle of that first revolution, Daddy-O. Let the word from the bird cut out from our pad, to hep cat and odd ball alike, that the pink slip has been passed to a cool generation of Americans - so what's buzzin' cousin?

You get an F in ghostwriting for something like that because a good ghostwriter disappears into the background. They mimic the cadence, style and lexicon of their subject and ideally the audience has no reason to ever question who wrote what. So that's why we're a little surprised by the press release that "Bristol Palin" released on Thursday in response to Keith Olbermann naming her his worst person in the world (Olbermann can die in his own special fire another time). So Bristol Palin didn't like that. Fair enough. Wanted to respond publicly because he attacked something she cared about. We can dig it. Time for a press release! But which one of her Mom's idiot brigade writing team thought this sounded like a twenty year old high school graduate?

Accusing me of hypocrisy is by now, an old canard. What Mr. Olbermann lacks in originality he makes up for with insincere incredulity.

"An old canard?" Is that how the kids talk these days? When exactly was Bristol Palin, barely literate on her Facebook page, possessed by Noel Coward's vengeful spirit? Nice job, Ms. Ghostwriter, you really nailed her writing style. Why not just sprinkle it with Benjamin Disraeli quotes, perhaps, "Almost everything that is great has been done by youth," and then refer liberally to her seven years in Tibet? I'm sure they can at least see Tibet from Alaska.